


As Above, So Below

by babythalasiren



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Minotaur & Theseus vibes, Monster Husband, Planet Jakku (Star Wars), That's Not How The Force Works, gratuitous Jakku cartography, realistic descriptions of poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26972665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babythalasiren/pseuds/babythalasiren
Summary: When Jakku's wells begin drying up during an unprecedented drought, Rey is forced into the abandoned mines of Cratertown to find scrap and sustenance. What, and who, she finds there will change her life.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12
Collections: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas: the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology





	As Above, So Below

As Above, So Below First Draft

Rey sped into town only to discover that the rumors were true: the well in Niima Outpost, the largest well on Jakku, was drying up. One look at the greedy gleam in Unkar’s eye told Rey that if she didn’t act now, others would. She knew firsthand that she couldn’t take on Unkar’s goons alone, so Rey cut her losses, hopped back on her speeder, and zipped back out into the wastes before a fight over Niima’s precious few resources could erupt. She could come back later once the tensions had cooled. “Tears are useless in a desert,” Rey thought.

Traveling near the sun’s zenith was unwise, but Rey only had enough water in her canister for the next few hours at most. Rey usually hunkered down in a shady spot to rest and recharge during this time, but by the time it would be cool enough to travel she would have almost no water left. Turning north, she gunned her speeder towards the closest well she knew of, which was a few hours away in Cratertown. An old mining settlement nestled at the foot of the Jakkuvian Mountain range, Cratertown was out of the way and unfamiliar, but water was water. She could refill her daily gallon there, then figure out where she would finish scavenging for the rest of the day. If she was quick enough, she could get her refill and make it back to the Graveyard of Ships with just enough time to scrounge something up before nightfall. Her stomach was already growling, but she could last without food. She couldn’t last without water. 

The ride was grueling but uneventful. The wind kept the heat at bay but it couldn’t stop the sand, which bit into Rey’s skin even underneath her lightweight wraps and thick gloves. Ignoring the sting, Rey pushed her speeder faster. Despite her tinted goggles, the sun’s midday glare was blinding. At least the terrain was flat and smooth. It was a waste of fuel, but when she felt herself growing bored she swooped and swerved her speeder erratically across the sand, hoping the jolts and whooshes would keep her focused. She tried to be as frugal as she could, but Rey knew she could begrudge a smidgen of fuel if it kept her awake at the wheel. 

“What if that well is dry too?” a small voice inside her asked. “If the main well is dry, what chance do you think the other wells have? And even if they are full, which, who knows if they are, how long do you think they’ll stay full? You aren’t Jakku’s only scavenger. Others will have the same idea. You’ve made it this far, but your time is running out and if you don’t do something now, you’ll end up another casualty of the desert.”

By the time she had arrived at Cratertown, she had forced that voice back down into silence. She was taking appropriate and logical steps to solve her situation. If she did what she was supposed to, everything would be alright. She just needed to survive long enough for her parents to make it back to her, then everything would be as it should, as it should have been this entire time. She was going to be fine.

A line had already started to form outside the well, but Rey got her refill pretty quickly after only a little bit of waiting. Rey recognized some familiar faces in the line; other Niimoeans shared her idea. Grabbing a shady spot near the well’s mub-brick wall, Rey leaned back against it to re-group. This was a smaller well, but maybe it could support everyone while Niima’s well replenished itself, or until they bought some water from off-world. That seemed like a possibility. What they needed was another untapped water source that they could use in the meantime. But if that water source existed at all, then it had lain undisturbed since Jakku’s beginning. A true oasis in the desert. Rey didn’t even know where to start looking for it, but it could be out there. 

The sun was already starting to dip back down towards the horizon, which meant that Rey had lost far too many scavenging hours today. If she left right now, she could make it back to the Graveyard of Ships just before nightfall. But scavenging in the dark wasn’t the problem. It was what and who came with the dark. And she’d still have to scavenge on an empty stomach. Unkar wouldn’t be happy and she’d earn fewer portions, but scrounging something up from Cratertown’s mines would be better than nothing. She didn’t have the right tools and she didn’t have the coin or trade to buy them, but she had a light and a knife. It was better than nothing, and she’d done more with less. Rey could do this. 

She parked her speeder in a shady outcrop of rock at the base of the mountain, double-checking that it was locked and secure. The last thing she needed was for her speeder to get scavenged while she was gone. Strapping her pack to her back, Rey trudged up the short mountain path towards the entrance to the mines. Most of the mines had been abandoned long ago when the ore proved too weak to smelt properly. But the headframes remained, plunging down into the side of the mountain. All she had to do was pick a lucky one.

Most of the headframes had collapsed or were visibly crumbling, their metal supports eroded by violent sand storms. Of the ones that survived, most would be too hot to climb down this early in the day. But finally, Rey found a suitable tunnel jutting out of the side of the mountain underneath a shady ledge. It would have to do.

Perhaps in another life, Rey would have been an engineer, come to inspect the machinery she had helped design and build. Strapping her light to her head wrappings, she carefully flicked on the warm, amber light. After one last reluctant glance around the desolation, Rey slipped between the headframe’s rusty grate, slowly lowering her body into the shaft. Bracing herself against the cold metal wall, she began to carefully inch herself downwards into the darkness.

Even as beads of sweat began to drip down into her eyes, Rey thought that this wasn’t so bad. Breaking her nail on a rocky outcropping, she briefly recalled a time when she had crawled on her belly through the guts of an MC80 Star Cruiser because she was the only one nimble enough to reach the destroyed cockpit. She’d had scratches on her arms and abdomen for weeks afterwards. They eventually became infected when she didn’t have enough clean water to disinfect them properly. Once she developed a fever, Plutt had begrudgingly given her some bacta, warning her that he expected her to recoup the losses he had accrued from her injuries. She’d done her best, but Rey could tell that Plutt still resented her for her mistake.

The bottom of the shaft hit suddenly, sending a hard jolt up her spine. Gingerly feeling around with her foot, she eased her weight onto the earth beneath her, slipping into a large crack that zig-zagged through the rocky floor of the mine shaft. Huh. Why had they stopped here? Perhaps the machine broke. Crouching down towards the crack, Rey peered inside it, hoping for something, anything to be inside. She didn’t think she could bear it if she scaled this shaft for nothing.

Something big and red glinted in the soft glow of her head lamp. Wedging her fingers into the crack, Rey grasped the shimmering crystal, which stuck tight to the rocky floor. Taking out her knife, she wedged the blade deep into the crack, slicing feebly at the rock. After one final jam, Rey heard a small crack and knew that something had broken free. Grasping the rock, she wrenched it loose.

Rey didn’t get a chance to look at the rock. Before she could react the crack widened, the tunnel floor crumbling beneath her. Scrabbling against the rock, she fought for purchase, scratching her fingertips bloody as she plunged into the darkness. 

Rey’s short, sweet, cruel life flashed before her eyes. The regrets that she had buried finally bubbled up, but one in particular screamed the loudest: _You should have left Jakku._

Rey hit water, fast and hard, knocking the breath from her lungs. Powerless against the force of her fall, she plunged through the cold, murky depths of the underground lake. When she eventually began to slow, Rey thrashed against the current, forcing her limbs to propel her upwards towards the air. Rey forced her sightless eyes open against the darkness, needing all of her senses to claw her way upwards. She broke the crest of the water suddenly and desperately, gasping for air as she choked. 

The cavern’s silence was as deep as its darkness. The only sounds were the echoes of Rey’s thrashing, which reverberated endlessly out into the blackness. Rey found a desperate rhythm by which she could bob pathetically in the current, but there was no light, no other sound which could guide her out of the lake. Only the tiny pinprick of light from the open mineshaft above shone above her, a faint and fading star. Staring up at that star, a firm thought crystallized in Rey’s gut: _I will not die here_.

Something gently buffeted Rey, urging her backwards through the water. Before she could recalibrate her bearings, a firm force enclosed around her and began to gently pull her backward. Once again unable to resist, Rey surrendered to the current, the force, whatever it was, and let herself be dragged along.

Time passed and yet it didn’t. It just was. The current rippled, the waves crested and broke along the lake’s surface, and Rey smoothly floated through the waves towards her destination. At times she swore she was hovering above the water’s surface, but who could really say in the darkness.

Rey could barely believe it when her toes began to brush against solid ground. The ground became firmer and firmer until she could support herself against it, and as she stood the invisible force that had held her unclenched its hold, dissipating as suddenly as it had come. She still could not see and she had no idea where she was, but Rey was standing on solid ground with air in her lungs and she was, somehow, alive. Exhausted, terrified, and wet, Rey sunk down against the rocky shoreline, and finally let herself sob. 

***

After her eyes were dry, Rey realized that the blackness around her was not as impenetrable as it had initially seemed. All kinds of shapes bloomed out of the darkness that weren’t immediately recognizable but made a rudimentary sort of sense in her mind’s eye. 

She had lost her light in the fall but not her pack and so, with her wet supplies, she carefully made her way forward through the darkness. Her fingers met the cave wall and, now that she had reoriented herself, she fished for something deep within her pack, praying that it hadn’t been water damaged in the fall.

Her fingers closed around the TH-ΣZ-UZ, a map system prototype that she had scavenged from an old X-Wing Starfigher. Rey thought of it as an electronic ball of twine, which used a series of lasers to mark paths that the explorer had already traversed. In lieu of electronic maps, which were almost all dead by the time she found them, it had been surprisingly helpful in navigating the skeletons of old ships. Plutt had told her it was useless, but Rey didn’t have the heart to dismantle it for parts. Twisting the metal sphere until it popped open, TH-ΣZ-UZ whirred to life, asking her what color laser she wanted to use. Selecting blue, the droid shone the beam down the tunnel, adjusting and recalibrating the beam until it hovered straight down the opening. Somewhere before them, the beam bounced off of the wall and ricocheted into the darkness.

Tracing her hand along the wall, Rey turned and made her way down the tunnel. It was the only way to go. She couldn’t go back up the way she came. She’d have to go down.

She continued in silence for most of her journey, using TH-ΣZ-UZ’s dim light to guide her way. Rey didn’t know much about caves, but something about the formation struck her as unnatural. Too even, maybe. As she followed TH-ΣZ-UZ’s laser further and further into the mountain, she thought she could hear the drilling and picking of the few remaining miners that must surely be somewhere in these caves too. If she could just find the right tunnel, or find a way to call out to them, she could be saved.

Eventually, she came to the fork in the tunnel where TH-ΣZ-UZ’s blue beam ended, ricocheting uselessly off the rock. From what she could see, the left path sloped gently upward, while the right path bent deeper into the mountain. When she tried to turn left, the obvious direction, TH-ΣZ-UZ refused to follow. Instead, it auto-selected a red beam, which dove down towards the right. She hadn’t gone too far inward, but resetting the droid would cause the intricate trail of light she was leaving behind to crash, stranding her in darkness. Rey stared for a moment into the dark column that must surely be the pathway to her freedom. Slowly, she turned and made her way to the right. 

After a few more zigs and zags, the tunnel began to level out. At first, she thought she must be imagining it, a trick of the light perhaps, but as she drew closer to it she began to make out a different light source, glimmering up ahead. Rey quickened her pace towards it, eventually tearing her hand away from the wall and hurtling towards it in a full-on run. Where there was light, there was something else and where there was something else, there was a way out.

Stumbling out of the darkness, Rey recoiled against the soft glow emanating from the crystalline chamber walls. From across the room, something raised its black head.

“So this is the disturbance.”

The shadow stood from its resting place and fixed her with a cold stare, pinning her where she stood. Rey tried to speak but she could only gape as the darkness coalesced into the vague shape of a man, its dark tendrils licking the air as it knit itself together. As it solidified, it spoke again: “Please, come in. It’s been so long since I’ve had a guest.”

“Who are you?” Rey asked, still struggling to comprehend what she was seeing.

“I’ve had many names,” it hissed. “But I am called Kylo Ren, now.”

“Do you like being called that?” she blurted out. It was the first question she could think of. The thing didn’t answer. “Please, sit,” it finally said. At its words, a grand crystalline chair built itself up out from the floor, glittering before her. She considered refusing, but her body screamed for rest. Exhausted, Rey collapsed into the hard chair. “Where am I?” she asked, shifting to find a comfortable pose.

“Under the mountain. Surely you knew that?”

“Objectively, yes. But I had no idea that this place was here.” Rey’s gaze drifted behind him to take in the refracting glass beyond them, blinding even underground. As her eye adjusted, she began to comprehend that the kaleidoscopic shapes connecting and disconnecting before her were a sprawling, crystal palace.

“How did you get here?” the darkness asked, jolting her from her reverie. “The mineshaft I was in collapsed,” Rey answered. It tilted its head, curiously.

“Which one? I sealed away all the mineshafts ages ago. There’s no possible way you could have broken through my wards.”

“It was over an underground lake. I was mining for crystals and the shaft caved in.”

“And how did you find my chamber?”

She held up TH-ΣZ-UZ, which beeped pleasantly. This was the longest she had ever used it, and it so far it was maintaining its laser map pretty well.

“I can feel your exhaustion. Please, come in and rest.” The beast called Kylo Ren seemed almost gentle.

Rey was too overwhelmed to refuse. She closed TH-ΣZ-UZ with a defeated click, shattering the intricate map it had built and tucking it into her pack. She supposed she didn’t need it anymore. Following Kylo through a glittering amethyst gate, she zeroed in on its dark form while it took them through a maze of luminous corridors that bent and refracted out of her comprehension. “In here,” Kylo stepped back, sweeping her through a glass door. “Rest and refresh yourself. I’ll find you when you are ready.” Stepping through, Rey collapsed on the bed before her, sinking into the softness. Before she knew it, she had already fallen asleep. 

***

Hunger pangs woke Rey from the deepest sleep she had had in years. Picking herself up, she dragged herself to the connecting ‘fresher, gasping at the sight of a shower, a real shower with actual water running through its diamond pipes. Disrobing, she quickly dove in, liberally using the wide array of soaps, oils, and salts that lined the inlaid shower shelf. Eventually emerging in a cloud of steam, Rey reluctantly re-wrapped herself in her dirty wrappings. She wondered what Kylo did for laundry.

Grabbing her pack and stepping out of her room, she found that the palace’s impassible maze made a lot more sense after a good nap. A dull pulsing in her head drew her through corridor after corridor until she found Kylo tucked away in a secluded grotto. Kylo had only been kind to her, but Rey didn’t think she could get used to the black, immovable mask of its face.

“You’re awake,” Kylo stated, bluntly. “Did you find me easily?”

“I can’t explain it. I just knew where to go,” Rey said, coming further into the room. Glittering emerald stalactites and stalagmites carpeted the room. What purpose could this room possibly serve?

“I’ve examined the wards you broke. There’s only one way you could have broken them on your own.”

“You mean the mineshaft?”

“Yes,” Kylo said. “Rey, do you know what the Force is?”

“You mean like, Luke Skywalker and the Jedi? I thought those were just myths.”

“Is this a myth?” The walls began to vibrate, knocking loose a large stalactite that shattered at her feet, peppering her with hard emerald bits.

“Alright, no!” she yelled. At once the rumbling stopped. “But why is the Force affecting me? Can others use it?” 

“That’s a complicated question.” Anger flickered through Rey.

“Well, you’re going to have to at least try to answer my questions or you can take me back to the surface. I’ve already lost way too much time here, I haven’t eaten all day and frankly, I don’t care about whatever this is.”

“The ability to use the Force is a rare gift, Rey. You shouldn’t throw away your talents. You just need a teacher.”

“Answer my question. Is there a way out?”

“There is.”

“Will you show me?

“I could. But you don’t look well. You should rest more.”

“I can’t. If I don’t get back to the surface, I won’t be able to finish scavenging for the rest of the day. And if I don’t scavenge, I don’t eat.”

“Is the Surface still a hard place?” he asked, gently.

Rey told him about Plutt, and the drought, and the well. She told him about her parents and how they were coming back for her if she just gave them time. She told him about her AT-AT and the speeder she had built herself and the small treasures she was sometimes lucky enough to salvage, like her Resistance pilot helmet and her doll and TH-ΣZ-UZ. Kylo listened with a quiet intensity that Rey had never experienced before. She was sure he was listening to and remembering her every word.

“Then let me give you these,” he said. Opening his palms, diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires, and every kind of sparking gem poured from his hands, overflowing into Rey’s lap. Rey could only imagine the portions these could buy her.

“I can’t accept these,” Rey insisted. “They are too expensive. They belong here.”

“But I have so many. I have so many that I’ve made a palace out of them. I insist, you must take them.” Rey felt her eyes begin to fill with tears, and so she turned away to stuff them into her pack.

“I would give you anything you wanted,” the darkness said, “if only you would come back and visit me tomorrow.”

“That’s it? That’s all I have to do?”

“That’s it. That’s all you have to do.”

“So you’ll show me the way out?”

“Even better.” Kylo raised his hand and at his wordless command, the cave wall began to split open. Crystals cracked open and tore themselves from the walls to create a staircase, ascending upwards towards the surface. “This should take you directly upwards. Let me escort you back.”

The sun was low in the sky by the time Rey peeked her face above ground. Glancing to her left, she saw her speeder tucked safely behind the outcrop where she had left it. “I didn’t want you to have to walk further than you needed to,” the shade said. “I don’t know how to thank you,” Rey said, turning back to look at her companion. So close to the surface, his form seemed to flicker, as if fighting to maintain itself. “Just come back,” it said, retreating further back into its cave. “Tomorrow, just come back.”

***

Plutt was stunned when Rey flung the first round of sapphires in his face. Predictably, he tried to cheat her out of them. After all, what good were gems in a drought? But as Rey dramatically packed up her hoard to go, he caved and gave her a week’s worth of portions. Beaming, she scooped them into her bag and nestled them next to the pearls and emeralds. For the first time in a long time, Rey went to bed full.

***

This time she left for Kylo’s mountain before the sun was even in the sky, parking her speeder underneath the outcrop just as the gold of dawn was dissipating into clear blue. But the passage Kylo had cleared yesterday had disappeared, leaving behind a solid rock wall. Rey supposed that she could always climb back down the mining shaft, but something pulled her back to this spot, some new instinct that she didn’t quite understand yet.

Focusing on the rock wall, Rey allowed her mind to slowly go blank, acknowledging the intrusive thoughts that drifted in. Taking a breath, she allowed those thoughts to drift back out on an exhale, imagining them meandering away in the breeze. Taking another deep breath, she imagined the rock parting like a curtain before her, opening to a tunnel that would take her back down to Kylo.

Nothing happened.

Kicking the sand at her feet, she stepped closer to the cliff. Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Reaching out again, she realized that she couldn’t change the rock because there was nothing to change. She couldn’t sense the rock face because the rock face didn’t exist. Opening her eyes, the illusion fell away, the mouth of the tunnel yawning open before her.

Popping open TH-ΣZ-UZ and flicking on her brand new flashlight, which she had bought with a sapphire, she began the long trek down into the unknown. It was possible that she didn’t need TH-ΣZ-UZ. That her new emerging powers would be enough to guide her through the labyrinth inside, but Rey was not willing to take that chance just yet. Better safe than sorry.

One day, she vowed to know these tunnels by heart. But until that day, she would carefully mark the passageways with TH-ΣZ-UZ.

She could hear the lake long before she saw it, the echoes of its murmuring waves crescendoing into a dull roar. Emerging from the mouth of the tunnel, she spotted a dark figure crouched over on the subterranean lakeshore.

But as she approached, Kylo’s amorphous form began to take on tangible characteristics. Straightening up, a pale face turned towards her, fixing her with deep, soulful eyes. Sweeping his dark hair out of his face, a small smile played across his plush lips. His broad form towered over her.

“You look different today,” Rey noted.

“I thought you might like this form a little better,” Rey blushed at his candor. “I see you shattered the illusion I placed on the tunnel.”

“It took me a moment to realize it was there, but I eventually saw the crack,” Rey said. “I’m not even sure how I did it.”

“I’ve always been able to do things like that. Things that made no sense. Haven’t you?”

“No, I have no idea what this is,” Rey said. “It feels like something that’s been asleep inside of me is finally awake.”

“I want you to close your eyes,” Kylo murmured. Rey obeyed, plunging herself into darkness. “There’s an energy field that binds everything in this world together, from the smallest speck of dust to the gods themselves. Can you feel it?” Rey emptied her mind and let whatever images come to her, come. She could feel Kylo’s body heat radiating next to her, hear the far-off drip of water from the stalactites, feel the eroding edges of the cave, see the sightless fish swimming in its depths. “I think so,” she said. “It almost hums.”

“Good. I want you to hold that space for a little longer. Imagine what you want to do. Imagine a rock floating up and into your hand. Can you see it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you _really_ see it?”

“Yes?”

“Then touch the Force and make it so.” She imagined the rock: every pore, every scratch, every shade within its surface, everything it had ever touched. Uncurling her hand, she found a jagged pebble sitting in her palm.

“Exactly like that.”

“Will you teach with me?” she asked, elated but afraid. Nodding, Kylo sat down next to her, their knees brushing, slipping into the meditative trance with the practiced ease of someone who had been doing this for a long time. It was hard to open her mind to the Force when Kylo was this close, but she banished the unbidden thoughts from her head and reached out. 

Something began to tickle the backs of her thighs. At first, Rey tried to release the sensation and maintain her meditation, but the sensation became overwhelming. As a giggle erupted from her lips, Rey opened her eyes, needing to investigate.

A carpet of lichen was springing up from underneath them, the green tips nonsensically poking through the cave rock. As the energy grew, the lichen twisted and burst into a carpet that stretched all the way down to the shoreline. “Kylo!” Rey cried, nudging his arm to pull him out of his trance. “Look at what’s happening!”

Kylo stood at once, whirling to take in the green spectacle. “No,” he breathed, watching in horror as the lichen grew. Raising his hand, he ripped a strip of lichen out by its roots. His anger rolled off of him in waves, scorching the remaining wave of lichen, which shriveled up and died, crumbling to dust.

Kylo stood, gasping before her, trying to regain control of himself. “Kylo, what’s wrong?” Rey asked. “That must never happen again,” he said, his voice eerily calm even as his limbs trembled.

“But what happened? Did we do this?” 

Kylo didn’t speak, his gasps finally abating. “Keep practicing.” He sighed. “I’ll give you what you came for,” he demurred, opening his palms to a flood of gold coins. “I believe this should tide you over,” he said. Rey fought the urge to gather up the coins with everything she had.

“I liked what we did,” Rey admitted. “I’ve always wanted to see a real forest. I don’t know how we did it, but I liked it and I don’t think it was bad.”

“They can’t survive here,” Kylo answered. “We can will them into existence as much as we want, but without the proper conditions they can’t exist. It would require constant meditation to sustain life down here, in the dark.”

Rey hadn’t considered this. “Could it be sustained on the surface?”

“I don’t know..”

“We should try it! What’s the harm in trying? We could create something so beautiful!”

Kylo blushed deeply, the tips of his ears a glistening pink. “I don’t know if I could. I can’t leave this place.”

“Have you tried?”

“Of course I’ve tried. I can’t.”

“I’d help you. If we could create a forest without even trying, we can do anything.”

“I’ll think about it. I make no promises.”

A sudden wave of exhaustion overcame Rey. Leaning against the wall, she sank down to the floor. “It’s exhausting, isn’t it?” He crouched down beside her. “You’ll build your stamina.” Resting her head against the wall, Rey closed her eyes.

“Or you could stay here. You need a teacher. I’ll show you the ways of the Force, you’ll train with me. We could be happy” Rey sighed, allowing her head to sink back against the rock wall with an audible thunk. His offer was tempting. 

***

Rey stashed half of Kylo’s gold with the rest of her emeralds and pearls, taking the rest to barter with Plutt. She considered skipping a day, she didn’t even need it, but she wanted those portions. However, Rey didn’t consider the fact that cashing in two boons two days in a row would attract attention, and although he let her leave unscathed and full, Unkar began to scrape together a plan to seize whatever treasure his little scavenger had found for himself.

***

A soft scratching sound urged Rey out of her slumber. Blinking blearily in the dark, she rolled over in her hammock and froze, suddenly aware that she was no longer alone in her AT-AT. As quietly as she could, Rey gingerly slunk down out of her hammock, crouching in the dark. Reaching out with the Force, she summoned her staff, which materialized silently in her grip. Reaching out even further, she gently felt for the signature of the intruder.

Teedo was digging around in the head of her AT-AT, uncomfortably close to where Rey had stashed the gems and gold. Cursing herself, Rey crept along the outside of the AT-AT, blocking the entryway into the head. The passageway to the neck had been crushed in the battle of Jakku, which meant that there was no other way in or out. Rey had him trapped.

“What are you doing?” Rey shouted, roughly flicking on the light. Teedo recoiled, brandishing his spear wildly in retaliation, knocking over a meager tower of supplies that Rey had managed to stockpile.

“I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t get out of my home now-“ Teedo rushed at her madly in a flurry of Teedospeak, thrusting his spear directly towards her stomach. Barely dodging in such close quarters, Rey threw her body out of the way as Teedo rushed into the night, vaulting onto his luggabeast and whipping it into a frenzy. Rey leapt forward to chase Teedo down, careening into another supply box. Stopping to take stock of the mess he had made of her supply room, Rey realized that it was worse than she thought. Boxes had been ripped open, canisters had been knocked over, and the small pouch where she had tucked away her portions was nowhere to be found. Forcing her tears down, she made herself double-check the loose panel in the cockpit, where thankfully her small treasure was still hidden. But Teedo was long gone by now. She should have killed him when she had the chance. Tears were useless in a desert.

Rey kicked herself for not thinking of this possibility. News on Jakku traveled fast, and if other scavengers knew that she had come into some luck, they very well could come looking to steal it for themselves. She may even have more visitors tonight. _“Why stay here?”_ a small voice asked. _“You could be living in a palace under the mountain. Why starve here?”_ For a moment, she didn’t have an answer. Rey craned her neck up to look at the starry sky, just in time to watch a star tear its way through the heavens. She couldn’t leave. They could be on their way back to her any moment. Rey was sure of it.

***

This time, Rey packed up her treasure alongside her canister and daily ration bar before speeding off towards Kylo’s mountain. Teedo would be back, she was sure of it, and might even bring reinforcements. Maybe she should camp out at Kylo’s for a while, just until the drought lessened. Things would get better once it rained again.

Shattering the illusion was easier today. She wondered if one day she’d be able to create her own tunnel, without Kylo’s help. Regardless of her improvement, she still booted up TH-ΣZ-UZ.

Today, she could feel Kylo deep within the mountain. Emerging from the tunnel, Rey was surprised to find him in a cavern that almost resembled an actual room, hunched over a delicate crystal table that impossibly supported his massive body. Rey was pleased to see that he had kept his human form today. Drawing closer, she saw that he was using a brush to paint small figures on a sheet of parchment.

“What are you doing?” she asked, craning to see the delicate swirls he was creating on the page.

“Writing,” he answered, carefully dragging the pen across the parchment in spidery flourishes. “Calligraphy, specifically.”

“It’s beautiful, but why? Most galaxies use electronic communication.”

“I find it very relaxing,” he said, deftly adding another embellishment underneath his writing.

“I suppose, but what are you going to do with it once you are done?”

“Probably nothing. Put it in one of my books. Does art need a purpose?”

“When most of the people you know are starving, it’s hard to imagine having the time and energy to invest in something that isn’t devoted to your survival.” Rey couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice.

“I’m sorry.” Silence stretched between them. The momentary victory Rey felt faded, the taste stale. “Would you like me to teach you?” Kylo offered. Rey nodded.

Standing in an elegant black swirl, Kylo offered his chair to Rey, who settled into it cautiously. She’d never sat in a chair with cushions before.

Kylo showed her how to hold the brush, how the grip placement and the pressure changed the size and weight of the strokes. How to dip the brush so there was just enough ink, but not too much. It was harder than it looked. Her first attempts were clumsy and although she was embarrassed, Rey pushed herself forward to keep trying. She never imagined she would be practicing calligraphy in an underground palace with someone who Rey was beginning to suspect was practically a god. She might not ever get this chance again.

As best she could, she mimicked Kylo’s delicate strokes, clumsily spelling out her name in Aurebesh. “Not a bad first try,” he said, and Rey smiled. He was humoring her, but she still liked her work. She would need more practice. If she could get it.

“Kylo,” Rey said, setting down her pen. “Why have you been so kind to me?”

“Why have you been so kind to me?” he countered.

“Are people not normally kind to you?” Kylo looked away, not wanting to answer. “I suppose you are kind to everyone,” he said bitterly.

“I try to be,” Rey answered, truthfully. “But I don’t always like the people I’m kind to,” Rey confessed, blushing, eyeing him shyly. Kylo pulled away, as if stung. He began pacing, crossing the room in jagged slashes. “If that is how you truly feel, then there’s no need for you to stay.” Turning away, he finished, “And there is no need for you to return tomorrow.”

Rey stood slowly, fingering the edge of her paper. “If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. I’ll get out of your life” she said carefully. “But you shouldn’t wall yourself away from everyone like this. I mean that. Even if your life doesn’t include me, it isn’t good for you to be down here.”

“Walling myself away, as you put it, is the only real way I’ve been able to stay safe.”

“Safe and untouchable underneath your mountain. While everyone else starves.”

“What happens to other people is not my concern. People must eat, but they don’t need to feed on me.”

“You seemed so generous. I had no idea you were actually so selfish.”

“I’m selfish? All you’ve done is take.”

“Nothing that you didn’t give.”

“It’s true. I gave you way too much. I guess there really is no limit to what you won’t scavenge.”

Tears flooded her eyes, tears of rage, as Rey grabbed her paper and stormed across the room towards the lip of the tunnel. She didn’t even bother to grab TH-ΣZ-UZ. Whirling around for one last jab, Rey threw what was truly in her heart in his face.

“You sit under this mountain with the means to save this entire planet from dying and you do nothing. The lake alone could sustain Jakku until it rains again. But what do you do? You put up magical wards to keep everyone else out. I may be a scavenger, I may have to fight and scrape and steal to survive, but I will never understand this kind of selfishness.”

In the depth of her rage and hurt was a quiet calm, an eye. Seizing it, she let the Force flow through her and do whatever it wanted to do. As Rey winked out of existence, somewhere above them she heard a deep crack, as half the mountain came tumbling down.

***

Rey re-materialized next to her speeder and without thinking, she hopped on top of it and sped back home, away from the rockslide her anger had caused. She didn’t want to know if she had killed anyone. She couldn’t think back on what she had just done, she could only drive, as fast as she could and as far and she could. Ramming the gas, she peeled down the mountain and out into the wasteland. Nothing mattered except the wind whipping passed her speeder and the hollow, furious roar inside her.

Her fuel gauge brought her crashing back to reality. Rey barely made it back to Niima Outpost in time before her empty tank stranded her in the wastes. Coasting up to the lone fuel pump, Rey used this moment to lean back and observe as the cheap hose slowly filled her tank.

A lot had changed in a few days. From the pump, she could see that a barbed wire fence had been erected around the well, where Plutt had moved his ramshackle stand. She wondered if Plutt had started charging people for the water, or if he was only rationing it. Knowing Plutt, he’d try to wring every credit he could from this. This was the very situation that Kylo could solve. _That you could solve._

Reaching out, Rey felt the numbness inside of her and yanked. The barbed wire fence split before her, twisting itself up into a ball, which hurled itself off into the distance. Rey wondered if she could call forth water, but villagers started to poke their heads out of their huts to investigate the disturbance. Hopping back on her speeder, Rey knew she needed to get as far away from here as possible.

By the time she arrived back at her AT-AT, Rey only felt an empty numbness. Settling into her hammock, she closed her eyes and admitted that the only person to take a genuine interest in her didn’t want her after all, and that her parents were never coming back. 

***

For the first time in a long time, Rey contemplated whether or not she really needed to get up today. She still had some gems, which meant that she could eat, and she had refilled her canister of water last night. She’d be fine.

But as the day wore on, Rey knew that the small cushion she had built herself wouldn’t last. Rey allowed the practice of routine to carry her out of bed, to perform her frugal ablutions, to dress herself against the sun, and speed off in the direction of the Graveyard of Ships.

The early birds had already gotten to the newer ships by the time she arrived. Rey didn’t feel like fighting today, so she picked a ship that she had scavenged before and knew well, well enough to know that there might still be some wiring and copper bits in its hard to reach places. Burying herself in her work, she let her body take over. She forced her fingers into the tiny compartments underneath the cockpit, scraping up her fingers to get the last bit of wiring. Dangling from a wing’s underside, she prayed she wouldn’t fall as she ripped off its sheet metal casing, nearly slipping as sweat began dripping into her eyes. Stopping during the midday heat wave to rest, Rey curled into a Dreadnaught’s cockpit to boil her portion. She wondered what Kylo was doing.

She wondered if she could feel his presence in the Force from this far away. He’d said that everything was connected, which included them by default. Closing her eyes, she allowed her consciousness to drift. She imagined his deep, dark eyes, his broad shoulders, his full mouth. She remembered the roiling darkness that knit his form together and a cold unlike anything she had ever felt before flooded her senses. Tearing her eyes open, Rey was left with a bone-aching sense of despair as she severed their connection.

***

Once the zenith had passed, Rey dragged herself back to Niima Outpost to refill and barter for parts. She was so close to calling this a day and traveling back up to Kylo. She didn’t understand what had set him off yesterday, or what about her he found so repulsive, but she’d fix it. She was good at fixing things.

A crowd had gathered around Plutt’s stand, which Rey pressed through like a snake. Finding the path of least resistance through the crowd, she found herself near the front where an Uthuthma was passing out chunks of sparkling rock and glints of gold to the crowd. “There’s an entire lake up there too!” Her stomach sank.

Fighting her way to Unkar’s stand, she pushed herself to the front, provoking the ire of the scavenger behind her. Rey hissed back at him in Huttese and he slunk back, sulking as he gave her space. “Plutt, what’s happening? Where did all the gold come from?” Rey demanded.

“We found your little secret up in the mountains. You weren’t going to tell me there was a hoard of treasure buried up there?” Reaching underneath the table, he dropped a crushed TH-ΣZ-UZ on the counter. Gently scooping it up, Rey gently tucked the remains in her pack.

“I should dock your portions for this betrayal,” Plutt sneered. “I taught you better than to keep everything for yourself, girl.”

“Is that all you found? Some bits of rock?”

“If you’re referring to that shadow thing, we killed that too.” He eyed her suspiciously. “Don’t know how you stole from it the first time, but it won’t be giving us any more trouble.”

“You’re lying!” Rey insisted. Plutt just laughed. “If you have nothing to sell, then get out of my sight.”

***

Rey raced as fast as she could over the desert and up the mountain, refusing to slow her pace. Even from far away, she could see that her rockslide had dramatically changed the landscape, which had cracked open like a jagged maw of teeth. Pulling up to the edge of Cratertown, she saw that her rage had demolished half of the meager town, burying the scrap metal buildings underneath a layer of rocky debris. Even from the base of the mountain, she could see the scavengers who were scaling the mountain to enter the newly revealed caves.

Tapping into the Force, she was overwhelmed by the proximity of so many chaotic signatures. Rey began to lose her grip, forcing her mind to feel them all so that she could find the one she needed. Underneath the slurry she felt a dull throb, emerging like a drum beat through the noise. Latching onto it, she followed the pulse to the closest crevice and wormed her way into the mountain.

As she made her way forward, the rock seemed to shift to accommodate her space. She didn’t know how she was doing it and she didn’t stop to ask, which was probably how she was able to do it. She opened herself as wide as she would go, letting the Force flow through her and rearrange reality as it needed to so that she could get where she needed to go. The amethyst gate to Kylo’s crystal palace had caved in, but at her touch, she passed through the rock with ease.

His palace’s kaleidoscopic hallways remained untouched except for the blood. Following the spatter, Rey found herself at a familiar door, pushing herself into Kylo’s bedroom.

Sprawled across the bed where he had let her sleep a lifetime ago, the black mass of Kylo Ren laid broken and bleeding into his soft sheets. He was slowly losing his physical form, his aquiline features unknitting themselves into the dark void of which she was once so terrified. Coming closer, she brushed what would have been his hair away from his brow.

“Kylo, can you hear me?” she asked. Feeling further down, her hands came away wet.

“Rey?” he croaked. “Is that you? I can’t see you. You’re blinding.”

“Kylo, I am so sorry. I never thought this would happen.”

“Rey.” A dark claw curled above her own. “Please stay with me. I don’t want to be alone.”

“I will. I’m here. Tell me what to do, Kylo. Tell me how to heal you. Surely we can use the Force to do something.”

“That’s not how the Force works, Rey,” he wheezed. Rey once would have recognized that pathetic sound as a laugh.

“Why did you send me away? I don’t understand.” Rey was beyond tears.

“I couldn’t bear the thought that you were being kind to me out of obligation. To pay me back. The way you had been to others.”

“Kylo. That wasn’t what I was trying to say at all. I don’t feel like I have to be kind to you. I want to be.” Kylo’s breathing became labored. “Oh,” he sighed. Rey felt a grief that could tear down the rest of the mountain.

“No. I’m not letting you die here.” Cradling him in her arms, she clutched him to her chest. Lifting with her legs, she hauled his frame upwards, beginning the strange trek back towards the surface.

Time passed, and yet it didn’t. She felt herself moving, passing through space and yet she had no concept of motion. There was only Kylo, his heavy press of his body against her own, and an understanding that he was her and she was him and they were everything.

The Jakku sun was blinding as Rey pulled them out of time and space and into the arid desert. Kylo turned his dark face to the sun, took one final breath, and dissipated in a thousand tendrils of darkness. Sinking to her knees, Rey turned her face towards the sky as the heavens opened in a torrential downpour.

An explosion of life roared across the desert, churning up the sand as blades of grass burst from the earth. Thin, wooden trunks twisted up from the sand, thickening into full trunks, branches unfurling and bursting with leaves. Featherferns unfurled. Bushes bubbled up. Lavender, aura blossom, blood flower, musk-roses, sunpetals, groundthrorn, and everlilies tore across the landscape in a riot of color. Ecclessis fig ripened on their new trees, emerald grapes popped on their vines, Almakian apples fell and were bruised in their fall.

When the sky cleared, Rey found herself in a mess of wildflowers so thick that their bright faces hovered over her chest. A hand slowly came into her field of vision, its open palm an offering. Grasping his thick fingers, Rey allowed herself to be pulled to standing, turning her face upwards towards strong aquiline features, dark eyes, and the sweetest smile she had ever seen.

 _Ben._ He said. _My name is Ben._

***

Rey the scavenger was never seen on Jakku again. Unkar Plutt didn’t miss her exactly, but he did miss the tidy profit his scavenger used to bring him, when he had once had a stranglehold on Jakku’s economy. But it was difficult to miss the harsh desert from underneath his own Jogan fruit tree. He sometimes thought he saw her, in the faces of off-worlders and in the faces of the former scavengers, but it was never her. Rey of Jakku had been swallowed by the shadow underneath the mountain and he didn’t think that she would return any time soon. 

  
  



End file.
